Free Republic

Ukraine’s president said Russia is trying to starve his country’s cities into submission but warned Saturday that continuing the invasion would exact a toll on Russia for “generations.” The remarks came after Moscow held a mass rally in support of its bogged-down forces. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused the Kremlin in an overnight video address of deliberately creating “a humanitarian catastrophe ” and appealed again for Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet with him to prevent more bloodshed. “Picture for yourself that in that stadium in Moscow there are 14,000 dead bodies and tens of thousands more injured and maimed,”...

TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) - Russians trying to enter the United States at the Mexican border are frustrated they are not getting in like Ukrainians are, despite leaving their homeland over the invasion of Ukraine. U.S. officials have let dozens of Ukrainians through this week but Russians remain in limbo, prompting some to camp on the pavement alongside a barbed wire border fence, defying warnings from Mexican authorities to leave. Irina Zolkina, a math teacher who left Moscow with her four children and her daughter's boyfriend, burst into tears when a U.S. border agent on Thursday took one look at her...

Lies related to the whereabouts of Vice President Kamala Harris and former Vice President Mike Pence on January 6 are coming to the fore. Federal prosecutors last week scored a big victory after a Washington, D.C., jury took less than three hours to find Guy Reffitt, the first January 6 defendant to stand trial, guilty on all counts. The Justice Department’s winning streak might be short-lived, however. Prosecutors will have a tougher task with the trial starting Monday for Couy Griffin, the “Cowboys for Trump” leader arrested for his minor and nonviolent involvement in the Capitol protest on January 6....

Explanation: 2MASS J17554042+6551277 doesn't exactly roll off the tongue but that's the name, a coordinate-based catalog designation, of the star centered in this sharp field of view. Fans of the distant universe should get used to its spiky appearance though. The diffraction pattern is created by the 18 hexagonal mirror segments of the James Webb Space Telescope. After unfolding, the segments have now been adjusted to achieve a diffraction limited alignment at infrared wavelengths while operating in concert as a single 6.5 meter diameter primary mirror. The resulting image taken by Webb's NIRcam demonstrates their precise alignment is the best...

Brussels (AFP) – Belgium on Friday delayed by a decade a plan to scrap nuclear energy in 2025, spooked by the huge rise in energy prices due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. "The federal government has decided to take the necessary steps to extend the life of two nuclear reactors by ten years," Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said in a statement. "This extension will strengthen our country's independence from fossil fuels in a turbulent geopolitical environment," he added. The push to 2035 comes as calls are rising that neighbouring Germany, Europe's biggest economy, should also rethink its nuclear...

Could it be because they're not the right color for our Democrat overclass? Ask Kamala. It's not brain surgery. But our clown princess, V.P. Kamala Harris, muffed the response to a reporter's obvious question: "How many refugees from Ukraine will the United States be willing to accommodate?" In her deathless fashion, Ms. Harris shunted the answer a normal person would have given by employing her secret vacuous weapon: her cackle, which timbre and timing have mystified and baffled ally and foe alike, without the concurrent conferring of power many sidesteps achieve by delicate tiptoeing through the fusillade of media pointeds....

"You can't make this up: President Biden is going to effectively give nuclear weapons to Iran, a country that routinely calls the nation he (supposedly) leads "the Great Satan," and that has repeatedly threatened to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. U.S. officials say they are close to reimplementing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a "deal" or "agreement" that is effectively a treaty. Just as incredibly, he is letting Russia handle some of the negotiations with Iran for us. Moreover, Russia recently announced that the United States had made written concessions to it that would allow...

I’m confused. I thought everything was Donald Trump’s fault? But now I hear everything is Vlady Putin’s fault? It’s almost like he’s an international banker or something. Or maybe he’s the new Corn Pop—a “bad dude” if there ever was one. Quick: What did Neil Kinnock say about times like this? Maybe Biden is just Putin us on. As usual.

Joe Biden’s response to President Zelensky’s desperate cry for help is to give Ukraine more than $1 billion in military aid. Unfortunately, the only weapons Biden approves will cause more Ukrainians to die. It is difficult to believe an American president could screw up giving away more than $1 billion. But of course, Joe Biden is unlike any other American president. This is not the first time I have been amazed at this level of human incompetence. I was once forced to eat at a national fast-food restaurant in Alpine, Texas where the cook was incapable of making an edible...

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Four American soldiers were killed in a plane crash during a NATO exercise unrelated to the Ukraine war, Norway’s prime minister said Saturday. Jonas Gahr Støre tweeted that they were killed in the crash on Friday night. The cause was under investigation. “The soldiers participated in the NATO exercise Cold Response,” he said. “Our deepest sympathies go to the soldiers’ families, relatives and fellow soldiers in their unit.” The plane was a V-22B Osprey that belongs to the U.S. Marine Corps, Norway’s armed forces said. “The aircraft had a crew of four and was out on a training mission in...

In an absurd display of hypocrisy, Joe Scarborough prefaced his anti-Republican rant Friday morning by piously proclaiming that he has avoided politicizing the Ukraine crisis. Scarborough then proceeded to unleash on Republicans in general, some unnamed Republican senators in particular, and an unnamed but obviously-targeted Donald Trump. Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

Williamsport, Pa. -- A mother accused of the homicide of her two daughters, Nicole and Jasmine Snyder, admitted during a preliminary hearing on Wednesday that she and her girlfriend starved each of the two girls “so she would die.” During the hearing held at the Lycoming County Courthouse for Echo Butler and Ronald Butler, Marie Snyder relayed intimate details of the death of both of her daughters. The girls, just four and six years old at the time of their deaths, were subjected to physical abuse, verbal abuse, restraint, humiliation, and starvation, Snyder admitted.

Russia responded Friday to President Joe Biden calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” by insulting Biden for his “irritability, fatigue and forgetfulness.” Top Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia sees and hears the statement that Biden made, and considers it a “personal insult” to Putin, but won’t take the accusation seriously, according to Russia media outlet TASS. “Bearing in mind Mr. Biden’s irritability, fatigue and forgetfulness, which eventually results in aggressive statements, we will possibly prefer to refrain from making any strong comments so as not to trigger more aggression,” Peskov continued. Biden called Putin a “war...

Putin fires hypersonic missile at Ukraine: Russia steps up war of attrition with another strike on west of country with 9,000mph missile as Kyiv claims invaders have suffered 15,000 casualties Moscow claims the 'Kinzhal'- or Dagger - missile is 'unstoppable' by current Western defensive weapons The weapon, which has a range of 1,250 miles, is nuclear capable. The Friday attack was a conventional strike Vladimir Putin has termed the missile 'an ideal weapon' that flies at 10 times the speed of sound The missile was one of an array of new weapons Putin unveiled in his state-of-the-nation address in 2018...

China’s President Xi Jinping urged his US counterpart Joe Biden to engage in talks with Russia to address the reasons behind the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, stressing it should be resolved through diplomacy. “All sides need to jointly support Russia and Ukraine in having dialogue and negotiation that will produce results and lead to peace,” the Chinese statement issued after the talks reads. - At the same time, President Xi told Biden that the ongoing crisis should be addressed on another level as well. Both Moscow and Beijing have denied Russia had ever sought help from China amid the ongoing...

March 19th 2022 Feast of St. Joseph, husband of the blessed Virgin Mary San Jose Metropolitan cathedral, San Jose, Costa Rica Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: White First reading2 Samuel 7:4-5,12-14,16 ©The Lord will give him the throne of his ancestor DavidThe word of the Lord came to Nathan: ‘Go and tell my servant David, Thus the Lord speaks: “When your days are ended and you are laid to rest with your ancestors, I will preserve the offspring of your body after you and make his sovereignty secure. (It is he who shall build a house for my name, and I...

Several Arab countries have been reviving their ties with Damascus, suggesting an effort to bring Syria back into the Arab fold. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad held talks in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Friday, his office said. This was his first official visit to an Arab country since the Syrian civil war erupted in 2011. Assad's only trips outside Syria during the war have been to Iran and Russia. Both nations have been key supporters of his regime. During the one-day visit, Assad met with the UAE's de facto ruler and the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed...

The coldest location on the planet has experienced an episode of warm weather this week unlike any ever observed, with temperatures over the eastern Antarctic ice sheet soaring 50 to 90 degrees above normal. The warmth has smashed records and shocked scientists. **SNIP** Parts of eastern Antarctica have seen temperatures hover 70 degrees (40 Celsius) above normal for three days and counting, Wille said. He likened the event to the June heat wave in the Pacific Northwest, which scientists concluded would have been “virtually impossible” without human-caused climate change. What is considered “warm” over the frozen, barren confines of eastern...

ATLANTA, GA—Celebrations for winning the 500-yard freestyle at the NCAA Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships were short-lived for convincingly female athlete Lia Thomas, as authorities caught her in possession of performance-enhancing testicles. “Investigators will need time to sift through the trail of evidence right now,” said NCAA’s Head of Testicle Enforcement, Bob Huevos, while holding up a jock strap, the device suspected to have been used to conceal the contraband from rigorous testing protocols. “We suspect the swimmer used this contraption to keep the performance-enhancing testicles secured between her legs.” Blood tests of the disgraced, obviously-female swimmer have led Huevos...